


the moment you die

by lesbianbirds



Series: character studies [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Baking, Character Study, Dissociation, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Non-Linear Narrative, georgie barker marry me, just a bunch a snippets really but shhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26932759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbirds/pseuds/lesbianbirds
Summary: A selection of moments in time as Georgie learns to live with other people.or; Georgie Barker experiences fear, love and manages to survive throughout it all.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Melanie King & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: character studies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965208
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	the moment you die

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: dissociation-like state, general ‘lack of fear’ stuff
> 
> thank you to polly and dottie for betaing!!
> 
> the paragraph breaks are wonky but just. ignore that, okay? 
> 
> title from... well, the magnus archives

The End is patient. The End is safe in its knowledge of one simple fact; everything dies. You will die, Georige Barker will die. That’s just how life is.

Georgie Barker doesn’t know the exact date of her death, but she knows how it will feel, and she knows her own name. She’s always been fond of it, the way it feels solid in her chest, like it can grow to fit her no matter how she changes.

Lately, she has been changing, and she isn’t sure she likes it. There might be some anger there, that this has been taken away from her. Or regret that she’ll never really get that swooping feeling in her stomach again. Georgie doesn’t know how she feels anymore, after all that time when it felt like she was sleepwalking through life. But colour is seeping back into her life, and she can smile at flowers and cry at movies now, so she’s going to figure it out.

She’s taken to categorising her emotions, when they trip and tumble and seem so unfamiliar. It helps. Georgie Barker is going to get better if it’s the last thing she does.

Maybe once she would feel scared at the thought, but that's not an option. There is something missing, in between joy and sadness, something she never thought she’d miss.

She’s just going to have to get used to it.

“I’m Georgie Barker,” she tells her mirror, and grins at her reflection. She still looks like herself, still has her slightly crooked teeth and pierced nose. If anything she feels more settled into her skin, because it’s hard to care what other people think of her when there is no twist of anxiety in her belly. “I can do anything, I’ve already survived death,” she said, snorting slightly at her own joke.

When she leaves her room she puts a bit of flair in her walk, a straightness in her back and a toothy grin she never would have had before. Her favourite blue shirt, bought from the men’s section with a hammering heart and Alex’s cheering ringing in her ears.

She’s a new woman now, a hole carved out somewhere in the centre of her that’s infected her and bled into her and is the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

Death is inevitable, so she’s going to live life like a whirlwind, like she’s a force of nature. It’s her only option, because no fear means she doesn’t look to the future and just see a timer. She’s already dead, after all.

Maybe it’s a tad dramatic; but it is her triumphant return. There is an awareness now, that people will be expecting something. The pressaure has not left, even if it is not settling like lead in her stomach, even if it doesn’t have a vice hold around her neck.

By the time she slips into her first lecture, Georgie is a tad smaller and quieter, her slouch more pronounced and shoulders up around her ears. It is a disguise that has worked well for most of her life, and sometimes it’s better to just keep your head down.

The lecture hall is already packed when she sits down, but she manages to find a seat next to a posh-looking Indian guy and a girl she vaguely recognises from her dorm. She attempts to smile at the girl, but she seems to be absorbed in the lecture.

The guy is decidedly more distracted, staring blankly at his notebook as if the lecturer wasn’t making any sense. When she peeked she could make out a few scribbled notes, but they seemed to be from the start of the lecture. He caught her eye as she looked, tilting the book deliberately away from her and scowling at her as she tried to pretend she hadn’t been snooping,

There was something about him that drew her back in the days afterward though - the tilt of his head, the soft smile he sometimes got. The fact that when she finally got him to open up he rambled about cats for twenty minutes with a blue blanket drapped over his black jeans.

The fact that something in her recognised the touch of something not quite of this world, something bigger and colder with a spider’s gentle touch.

***

When Georgina Barker is seven she falls and cuts her knee on the bench in the playground. She still remembers the split second before the pain, the blink and you miss it rush of panic and adrenaline.

Georgie had never been one to hold her emotions back, to do anything but cry or laugh or shout if she wanted to. But that moment, the coiled anticipation, the _fear_ , she craves that in her weaker moments. The weightless feeling of skydiving, of the blood-curdling terror and triumph when she survives.

So yeah, maybe she used to be a bit of a thrill-seeker before Alex. It’s not like it matters anymore. But sometimes she wonders, when she knows more, if the Vast could have taken her.

That wouldn’t fit though, because Georgie Barker is larger than life and knows it. Insignificance has never scared her, not even that moment in the dissection room.

Nothing scares her anymore of course, but once might have been afraid of running out of time. That there were a million things to do and no time to do them in. That at some point that split second would be the last moment she ever had, that one day Georgie Barker is going to get in over her head.

***

The feeling of Jon’s hair underneath is soothing by now, the motions of braiding it almost thoughtless. Every night he sits cross-legged on the bed while Georgie braids his hair in the warm light of their bedside lamp, the dark purple fabric of the blanket twisted in his hands. The routine is comforting, the content smile Jon wears making something in her chest glow with warmth.

“See? I’m getting better,” she teases, gathering a few stray hairs in one section and begins to braid, beginning to chant _left, right, left, right_ under her breath as she slips one section under the other. Jon lets his eyes slip close as she does, relaxing into her gentle touch; by now he trusts her not to pull tight or brush against his neck too much.

“Mmhm, still not letting you paint my nails,” he murmured sleepily, ignoring her indignant squawk, “Braiding is one thing, but I still remember what happened last time I let you try.”

“I’ll have you know I have improved greatly since then,” she sniffed, concentrating on keeping his braid neat so Jon wouldn’t catch her smirk, “Mum has been giving me lessons.”

“...maybe one day, but I’m picking the colour,” Jon said, and she couldn’t see his face from this angle but she could imagine the half-amused twist to his lips. It made her want to kiss him, but it wasn’t worth messing up the braid.

“Deal!” Georgie cheered, making a note to look up some more tutorials or something on the matter.

“But only if we go shopping for some button-ups for you,” he added, and Georgie couldn’t hide her chuckle this time, just like Jon couldn’t hide his smile.

“How could I refuse?” She finished off the braid with a purple hair tie, and another smile snuck its way onto her face at the sight of him like this. Wearing an oversized yellow jumper, the day’s makeup yet to be wiped off his face, sleepy looking and content.

Really, it was no wonder she kissed him, a simple brush of the lips (he didn’t like anything less chaste - Georgie didn’t really understand it, but she didn’t particularly care). They stayed with their faces close together for a second, and Jon looked so _happy_.

Georgie was too, deliriously so. No holds barred, no petty worries about their relationship. It was the best feeling in the world.

***

Melanie hummed gently in time to the theme song of their favourite podcast, rocking the knife gently back and forth on the cutting board before setting to dicing the chocolate. She’d insisted on making chocolate chip cookies, and Georgie wasn’t about to refuse her beautiful girlfriend. Because they were dating now, a month strong and she was still giddy with it.

Georgie smiled as she flicked the beaters off, pressing a gentle kiss to Melanie’s cheek when she finished with the chocolate. Then it was a simple matter of adding flour and milk, before folding in the bits of chocolate.

This was their life now, baking and recording podcasts and all of the domestic things Georgie never thought she’d have. Sure, there had been Jon, but it wasn’t like that relationship was ever going to end well.

“Georgie! It’s time for Star Wars,” Melanie called out, her cane quietly rumbling as she walked over to the living room. Georgie hummed her assent, setting the timer quickly before joining her on their couch.

And it was their couch, because they lived together and Georgie woke up to Melanie’s beautiful face every morning and her crappy singing and her overly strong cups of coffee. Because she had a favourite blanket from Georgie’s collection now, a blue one she liked to drape around her shoulders.

“Nerd,” Georgie nudges her affectionately as she wriggles in closer, stealing a bit of the blanket for herself. There’s a bit of a fumbling for the remote, but in no time Melanie is nit-picking the details of the latest Star Wars film.

For her part Georgie likes Finn, but there’s a certain satisfaction in watching big CGI explosions that forms a solid half of her reasoning for the movies. The other half is the fact she got really into the whole extended universe as a teenager and never quite shook it.

Melanie loves hearing her rants about how they mangled the series though, so Georgie really lucked out there. She lucked out in the fact that Melanie hates silence as much as she does but never minds filling it with meaningless noise when they can’t talk. She lucked out in that she doesn’t mind that Georgie doesn’t say ‘I love you’ all the often, or sometimes she has days when all she wants to do is bake and watch a movie and stay quiet.

“Hey, want to go to that second-hand shop you saw a while back?” Georgie whispers into her ear during some fight scene or another.

“Of course! I’m thinking of getting a new skirt, and you’d look handsome in a new coat,” Melanie whispered back.

“We can stop off at that new LGBT meeting, there was a baby lesbian who looked pretty scared last month. Pick up some more eggs too.”

“I’d love that, Geor- wait, we can talk about this later, this scene is actually good,” Melanie took a deep breath after, something Georgie recognised as a tactic for calming herself down when excitement bled into anger.

She squeezed her hand in reassurance and started paying attention to the movie again, keeping half an eye on Melanie’s rapt fact, the flashing colours casting shadows on the curve of her cheek and the dip of the dimples.

Needless to say, when the timer went off they were both a bit startled.

***

Georgie had felt like she couldn’t breathe that moment in the dissection room. But it’s pointless to linger in such memories, so in the present Georgie lets her lungs fill with air.

Still, she does touch her fingers to her throat ever so gently and closes her eyes, remembering the smell and the far too loud (quiet, ever so quiet) words. The voice that would chase her in her dreams if her nightmares worked in that way.

The last moment of fear she ever felt, handled carefully like it was spun glass. Her humanity numbered down to the final second, when she became something less, something less.

If she was a weaker woman she would have died then, and maybe she would never have reawakened. Maybe she would have been stuck like this forever, a sleepwalker when everything felt miles away.

It’s time like this Georgie really loves The Admiral, the soothing feeling of soft fur under her fingers and cold of his ears as she scratches them just how he likes it. She loves the soft weighted blanket too, and Melanie’s favourite bumpy red mug. A reminder that there is something beyond the hollow centre of her.

She feels like a black hole, but that just makes her think of the thing-that-was-not-Sasha talking about physics with a smile she thought she loved.

A black hole requires her to be something other than passive though. Something other than someone who knows her life is already lived and is just waiting for the end.

Books never help when she’s like this, when touch feels distant and words swim in front of her. So instead she curls up under the purple weighted blanket and listens to the audiobook with the red cover Melanie left behind, Admiral’s purring ginger form tucked under her chin.

Some part of her recognises that she is loved. There’s just nothing there, just empty space where a reaction should be. Happiness, sadness, joy, anything but the passing flicker of Oh.

Georgie Barker isn’t alive, she lost that right long ago.

(Soon, Melanie will find her, coax her in the gentle butterfly-tapping that sometimes helps when she gets like. Soon colour will bleed back, reds and purples and blues.)

***

Georgie Barker sits in front of a crappy mike, a neatly typed out script in front of her. She’s worked hard for this, and she knows that she’ll make it. There’s nothing to stop her trying, after all.

She always thought she’d go into something involving people, taking tour groups around museums or something. This is better than anything she could have imagined though, getting to speak about something she’s passionate about. (Something that isn’t real, isn’t like cold dissection rooms and people who shouldn’t be breathing).

“Hi there, haunts fans! I’m Georgie Barker, and this is a brand new episode of What the Ghost - only the second, but already I can tell you’re loving our info on spooky going-ons.”

  
***

There is a quiet moment in the apocalypse, when Georgie and Melanie find a corner where you can’t hear the screams and just hold each other. Georgie cards her hand gently through Melanie’s dark hair and whispers all her hopes for the future to her. The house they might have eventually, the second cat Georgie has been thinking of buying for a while.

“I bet the apocalypse will do wonders for the economy,” Melanie murmurs into her collarbone, and the hint of a smile Georgie can see makes her feel something warm inside. Like she’s on fire, but not the destructive burning of the Desolation. A quiet flicker of red, settling deep into her bones.

Georgie laughs and presses a kiss to the crown of her head, tapping the upturned end of her nose. “I’ll be happy as long as you keep on making those chocolate chip cookies.”

“Oh, shut up,” Melanie grumbles, but her smile only grows wider and she presses a gentle kiss to the corner of her month. No fire, Georgie thinks, no shaking, blood-stained hands. No bone-deep anger, the urge to run and fight and hurt settling deep inside her. No dreams of tearing everything apart from the inside out for some hope of catharsis, of salvation, of victory.

Georgie should've gone into the theatre. Everyone used to say that when she relaxed enough around them for her gestures to get more expressive and expansive. Or when she got confident to recite lines from Star Wars by heart. (Melanie had laughed, and kissed her gently).

She doesn’t think of that now though. Instead she thinks of fire and smiles big and wide, without a hint of fear.

***

When Georgie is a twenty-something she gets to watch her relationship implode in real time.

It turns out things fall inward if you press the self-destruct button. But curiosity killed the cat, and Georgie loves Admiral, she really does. But there is satisfaction of watching the one good thing in your life go _Boom._

She says one good thing, but really it was a path of mutually assured destruction. The inevitable accumulation of every quiet moment and screaming nightmare.

Georgie doesn’t believe in fate, but she believes in human nature. Like recognises like, birds of a feather stick together.

There is something in the way Jon twitches at knocking and spiders that goes beyond the obvious. There is something in him that craves, that has many eyes and many throats.

“You always knew it would end like this,” Jon spits as he packs up his things, anger visible in the slope of his shoulders, the stubborn set of his jaw. This was the kitchen they had made Vada in together, and she’d laughed at his miraculous ability to withstand heat exclusively while cooking.

This was the living room they’d made fun of dumb dramas and worse paranormal investigator shows in. The bedroom they’d slept together in (not that kind of sleeping together, and Georgie would be lying if she didn’t admit to herself that didn’t help).

“What, that you’d be so bloody focused on… what? Being normal, being _professional_? I don’t know what the fuck happened to you but we both know that’s impossible,” Georgie yelled back.

Jon had flinched then, but didn’t say anything in return. He slammed the door on the way out though, and Georgie took some vicious satisfaction in it.

Her house seemed so bare of colour without him in it though, no embroidery hung on the walls or weird knick-knacks. There’s just his weighted blanket on the couch from their final tense movie night, so she folds up the purple material and tucks it away in a cupboard.

Georgie can still grieve it seems, so she sits on her stupid lilac bedspread and cries until it feels like she’s been wrung-out completely. Just a quiet sort of emptiness (of deadness) that she’ll never be able to shake.

Regret burns it turns out, so Georgie lets herself take a sick sort of joy in it.

***

Georgie held the orange tabby up to eye level.

The cat gives her a rather impressive glare in return, helped along significantly by the chunks taken out of his ears. Only two years old and already he’d gotten into more than a few fights.

Looking at him was the most lovely sensation Georgie had ever felt, who in that moment decided she was definitely a cat person. When she tucked him under her chin he meowed softly and stretched out his neck to purr gently into her neck.

“I think we’re going to be friends,” she tells him, not that he answers back. Georgie had already met him of course, gone through the adoption process without a hiccup. But having him in her house, heavy and real in her arms was a nice feeling.

There was still something in her that felt a little hollowed out and burnt, something that craved that split second adrenaline rush she’d never be able to feel again. But it was hard to think like that when kissing a cat’s furry forehead. Besides, she had just started dating Jon and she knew he would love him.

“Yeah, friends,” she whispered again, before shaking herself and going to set up the litterbox.

***

When Georgie first starts dating Jon she takes him hiking, out in a little trail near the beach. They’re silent for most of the drive, but when they get to the outlook Jon looks like he’s come alive.

Standing there, watching the waves endlessly crash against the shore, Georgie feels like she’s alive too. Like she’s woken up from a long dream, and now she’s solid flesh and blood. She feels so much now, in ways she never knew existed before she lost the ability. But now everything's technicolor, bright and painfully real. She’s started wearing brighter colours - purple and blues, orange sometimes.

“Hey,” Jon says, so quietly the sound is almost lost in the wind, “Do you think we’ll stay together?”

Georgie laughs and presses a kiss to his cheek, right where the beginnings of stubble is forming. “I can’t answer that,” she leans against the railings, toying with the purple edge of her button-up, “But I hope we’ll always know each other.”

Jon joins her, resting his stomach against the upper bar and letting his head hang over the edge like he’s a kid. Georgie remembers when she used to do that, let the blood rush to her head as she stared at the rocky cliffs. Her sister used to laugh as she pulled her back up, saying she was made to be a gymnast.

“I know we will,” he says to the waves, his hair falling loose around his face. There’s the beginning of grey in his hair, like the silvery threads of a spiderweb.

He’s wearing the skirt from their shopping trip a few weeks back, an orange Georgie had tossed into his arms along with his normal darker colours.

“You just love The Admiral!” Georgie accuses, pointing a threatening finger at him as if she isn’t shaking with silent laughter.

“Well…” Jon swings himself upright so he can more appropriately grin at her. Georgie laughs again, reminded of her sister and her’s old arguments about who their cat loved more.

“This is a good place if you want to scream,” Georgie says suddenly, all the times she’s hiked up here with her sister sharp between her ribs. “Not in a spooky way, but if you want to let something out.”

“Oh good, I was just about to say this was the perfect setting for a horror movie,” Jon said dryly, letting his grin break out only when Georgie elbowed him.

“Come on, don’t act as if you don’t want to just _scream_ sometimes,” Georgie said, before making a face and taking an exaggeratedly deep breath. “Like this!” She says with all the force she can. Georgie doesn’t get to scream much, too used to making herself as non-threatening as possible. It’s nice now that she gets the chance again.

Jon pauses for a long second before copying her, tilting his face up to the sky, “I’m sick of being scared!”

“I wish that I was scared more often!”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life!”

“I want to make something I love!”

“I don’t want to die alone!”

“I won’t let you!”

“I love you,” Jon yells, and then he smiles at her properly, wide and with all his teeth showing. Georgie feels more solid on the ground at the sight of the smile, utterly sure that she’ll love that smile for the rest of her life.

“I love you too,” Georgie yells back, and she presses a kiss to his forehead, slinging an arm around his shoulders so they can look at the ocean together. She tucks him up against her side so she can cover him with her coat, and he wraps a protective arm around his middle.

***

The first time Georgie invites Jon over for a dinner after the apocalypse he and Melanie have a loud argument while Martin and Georgie enjoy their cups of tea and discuss the finer points of script-writing.

The second time they settle for various passive-aggressive glares, jabs and oddly threatening gestures with forks. At one point Jon makes an overly polite comment about Melanie’s fall from grace, she calls him a pompous asshole. It turns out Martin is a lively conversational partner when you get him talking about the horror genre.

The third time they don’t speak to each other, instead making vague requests to pass the cheese and to shut up. Jon says he’s been thinking of digging up his grandmother’s old recipe for gulab jamun, Melanie volunteers to join him. Martin agrees to guest star on her podcast, and notably doesn’t say that this whole thing is going to end in a disaster.

The fourth time Melanie and Jon retreat to a quiet corner to work on sound editing and research respectively (whatever _that_ means). Jon gives a few surprisingly helpful tips on dramatic effect. When Georgie asks her lovely, confusing girlfriend about it later, she says they’re friends now. No further explanation is given, but Georgie has a feeling that’s not a story she wants to hear.

The fifth time they have dinner together Jon drags Martin into a fierce debate about the existence of Bigfoot with Melanie. It is loud and noisy, and looking at them Georgie can’t help but love them. (No holds barred.)

***

Melanie held on tight to Georgie’s hand, and she wanted to hold this moment somewhere close to the heart of her, slot into that bit that was taken from her. Beside the bits of her that are Jon’s rare smiles and her sister’s laughter and the feeling of Melanie’s arms around her. She had never liked the idea of someone being one half of a whole but this was love. Pure and simple, bone-deep and inescapable.

Right now it was the only thing she had, in the face of the unblinking stare of the sky. But Georgie Barker is a survivor, so that’s what she is going to do. She has not kept on going through all of that to die at Elias’ hand.

It’s odd, that like this Georige feels as comfortable as she’s ever been. Not just the lack of fear, but the feeling that she is putting a performance is gone. No more Georgie Barker the reckless or Georgie Barker the worry-wart just her, her as she is.

And it is Georgie Barker who presses a kiss to Melanie’s temple and brushes a strand of hair from her face. It’s Georgie Barker who stands tall and straight (heh) and squeezes Melanie’s hand with every ounce of comfort she has.

Then she picks up Admiral’s cat carrier again and continues on her way, eyes straight ahead and unselfconscious in the face of the relentless stare of the Beholding. It can’t see her, it can’t hurt her.

She will not die, she will not let Melanie die. This is not a statement born of fear or deluded hope, but instead fact. This is a feeding ground, the place where all fear must live, but she is the odd one out, and for once that hollow thing will be a gift, even if it wasn’t intended to be.

***

“I love you,” she says to Jon, to her sister, to Alex, to Melanie.

“I’m not afraid,” she says the endless, unblinking sky.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! feel free to talk to me at @lesbianbirds on tumblr.


End file.
